A Short Collection
by alicinna
Summary: Brief one-shots inspired by prompts from the bitesized bones LJ community. Multiple characters, pairings and genres. Rating may go up.
1. an alarmingly steep learning curve

I went back and picked up some prompts from the bitesized_bones livejournal community, just to give me some inspiration. I'll gather them all here, (unless they get out of hand, lengthwise) and I want to update pretty reguarly.

...

**an alarmingly steep learning curve **/ _she learns how to carve out her own personal space_

_Prompt_: Brennan, the first time in foster care someone hit Brennan in her home

...

After her first placement ends, her case worker drives her to a Children's Home at the other end of town.

"Just until we find you somewhere else," the woman says, cheerfully. "I'm sure you'll like being around other kids your age."

Temperance doesn't answer, leaning her head against the car window. In three weeks she will turn sixteen. The family she was staying with - a sweet, young couple, first time foster parents, looking to adopt - were taking in a younger child and couldn't look after them both.

"Nick and Kate really are sorry to see you go," her case worker adds, glancing over at her. "They want to keep seeing you sometimes."

"No, thank you," Temperance murmurs politely. Her case worker just nods.

They pull up to the Home, a largish building set back from the road. The yard is filled with abandoned toys. Inside, the owners sit with her case worker and go over paperwork. Temperance watches as her file is passed over. She sits on her hands and declines when someone offers her a drink. The chair is old, the orange fabric torn at the edge beneath her thighs. There's a spongy stuffing that she presses her nails into it while the meeting drags on.

"We're pretty full at the moment," the woman, Jane, tells her. "But we can squeeze you in." She smiles broadly, guiding Temperance up the stairs. "Do you have a nickname? Temperance is kind of a mouthful!"

"Just Temperance."

"Okay. Here we go." The room is not large but can comfortably fit two single beds, two chests of drawers, two desks and a wardrobe. Along side that, a third bed has been squeezed in, with a bedside table. "You'll have to share the drawers and desks," Jane says regretfully. "It's just temporary, until things ... move around."

The two other girls in the room are called Gloria and Lucy. Jane introduces them, asks Gloria to show Temperance around, then disappears.

Gloria is seventeen, all harsh edges and cigarette smoke. "Don't touch my shit," she snaps and leaves. Lucy is small and pale and looks about eight. She is curled up under the duvet on her bed, the covers tucked up above her nose. Temperance looks around and hesitates, then simply slides her bags under the bed rather than unpack.

The sheets are clean, but feel a little rough - overwashed, over bleached. The pillow is thin and hard. Temperance lies down and tries to ignore the gaze of the other girl.

It's not all that bad, once she gets into the routine of it. Timetables for the bathrooms, shared chores, curfews: Temperance lets herself slide mindlessly into it. With so many children in one home, the noise goes on and on, even through the night. She turns sixteen with little fuss: there's cake at dinner time, but one of the other kids blows out her candles and then a fight breaks out before she cuts the cake. Nick and Kate send a card with a twenty dollar bill and a photo of themselves and the little boy they are looking forward to adopting. Lucy draws her a picture and leaves it on her pillow.

Though she tries to do all her school work at school, given the noise and lack of privacy at the Home, one night she sits at Gloria's desk to try and finish the homework she didn't get done at lunchtime. Gloria doesn't use the desk to work, just as a surface to pile shoplifted CDs and makeup. Still, when she comes in the room she snaps, pulling Temperance from the chair by her hair and hitting her over and over again. Temperance lies still, in shock, not sure how she should respond.

They get pulled apart by the staff members working that night. Temperance sits in the office with her back ramrod straight while they are both lectured at for fighting. She considers pleading her case, that she didn't fight, she just lay back and took it, but she doesn't know these people and they snap at Gloria for interrupting, so she stays quiet.

Next time Gloria hits her, she hits back, hard. There's a moment pause, and a glint of almost respect in the other girl's eyes. The time after that, Gloria gathers a few friends and catches her on the way home for school. Temperance throws all of Gloria's things off the desk and into the bin and when Gloria comes in she shoves her backwards so hard, the other girl's head bounces off the doorframe.

She's there for six months, and she's always covered in bruises, but she's learnt how to fight back, how to glare sullenly at social workers while they lecture her, how to carve out her own personal space with violence and anger.


	2. dead girls, circling

Urgh, sometimes stories just don't come together like you imagine they would.

...

**dead girls, circling **/ _booth can't sleep_

_Prompt: Booth/Brennan, Man on Death Row - Booth says "If I don't make this call, he'll be dead in half an hour." What if he didn't? Would he be able to live with himself, if he knew what he knows now about the effects Epps would have...?_

_..._

Booth has dead girls circling in the edges of his eyes. He's going to close his eyes and fall asleep and then they are going to be _just there, _skeletal and silent. Booth presses the palms of his hands against eyes. He can almost see the ghostly images forming. Groaning, he flings back the covers, kicking his legs as they get tangled in the fabric.

He drives in circles for a while, embracing the mindlessness of cruising along empty streets, not having to think - years and years of driving and he's doing it on autopilot now, his brain checking in occasionally.

Autopilot of course ends up taking him to one place he drives to most days. He parks close to the entrance - no need to compete for spaces in the middle of the night - and turns off the engine. The silence is overpowering.

He shouldn't be surprised to find the lights still on in the lab. He swipes his card and takes two long strides up the four steps to the platform.

She's working only by lamplight, leaning over the examination table. There are three sets of remains up here, three skeletons laid out precisely and almost looking like a human being. She sets down the bone she's looking at with a gentle tap. She picks up the next one.

"What are you doing here Booth?" She hasn't even looked up, but of course she knows it's him.

"Couldn't sleep." He circles around the table warily until he's standing on the opposite side to her. She doesn't raise her eyes from the bone she's looking at - it's a rib, but he couldn't tell you more than that. Brennan could probably tell him a lot from this one bone. He watches as she makes a brief scrawled note on the pad of paper by her right hand, without even looking away from the rib. She turns it around a few more times, running the fingertips of first her right hand, then her left across the surface of the bone.

With a gentle tab, the bone was back in it's place. Brennan arched her back, stretching, tipping her head from side to side, before she pulled off her gloves. Finally she dropped her gaze to Booth.

"I thought this case was all wrapped up?"

"I wanted to be sure we had catalogued all the injuries," she replied, lightly. "It seemed - right."

Booth shook his head, and ignored her when she frowned and asked "what?" It was a futile exercise, this case. These girls - three skeletal ghosts spread out across her tables - were victims of Epps. Epps was dead. There would be no trial, no judgement, no justice. Just stacks of paperwork, neatly filed, his writing and hers, i's dotted, t's crossed, signed, sealed and filed away where no one would ever have reason to look for it again. He's suddenly grateful for Angela's sketches - a touch of humanity amongst Brennan's science and his offical detached reports.

"I just wanted it to be ... complete. They deserve that. They deserve someone knowing everything they went through, someone other than - " Deep breath. If it wasn't for the table between them he might have hugged her, though he can imagine how she would have stiffened against it.

"They do," he agreed. He eased his way around the table and risked pressing a hand to her elbow. "What did you see on this rib?" He points to the last bone she put down. He can feel her gaze on him, baffled.

"Nothing."

He started to pull his hand back, but she covered his hand with hers and pulled it further up the skeleton.

"There is a small fracture here," she guides his finger to hover over the tiny crack on the collarbone.

"From when she was - "

"No," Brennan interupted. "No, from when she was younger. Five to eight years old. The remodelling, around the fault, see?" He doesn't, but he nods. "Mostly likely a fall. A tree perhaps."

"Bunk beds," Booth suggests. "Maybe she was playing with her sister and she fell off the top bunk."

"There's no way to know that," Brennan protests, half heartedly. She pulls her hand back, bringing his back with hers. She laces their fingers together for a brief moment before pulling her hand back.

Booth took a deep breath. "How about some takeout? You look like you could do with a break."

He thinks she might say no. She pulls her arm away and regards the skeleton and her unfinished notes. He can almost see the words on her lips - _I'm busy, I should finish this first _- but she suprises him, as always.

"I want Thai. Tofu."

"Ew. No."

"You don't have to eat it."

"I have to watch you eat it," he teases, pressing a hand to her back and guiding her towards her office. He plans to sit next to her on her couch, to dig out that illegal alcohol Hodgins is always brewing and tuck them both beneath a blanket with their takeout. He wants to watch her eat, drink, fall asleep. He wants to tell her he's sorry, sorry for stealing justice from those dead girls, sorry that she is left with their bones telling her incomplete stories that no one who will ever want to hear.


End file.
